Women in trade: Financial inclusion as a tool to boost intra African trade
They arrive every day in droves, at the Uganda – South Sudan border crossing at Nimule, in Magwi County. Some wear colorful, Kitenge dresses (African wears), and others dressed in simple, work trousers. They cue, often for hours, in the oppressive heat, and dust, waiting for customs officials to inspect their documents, hopefully allowing them passage to buy and sell goods. They are women, taking their chances as cross-border traders.
Aremo Florence is one of a growing number of South Sudanese women working in the cross-border trade business. She makes and sells, herbal soap, jellies, handmade shoes, and second-hand clothing, and has been competing with her male counterparts, for 3 years. Now she’s just asking for equal policies and regulations to help make it easier for women engaged in cross-border trade.
“If women don’t have the necessary documents, they say give us something so that we can release your goods. Men who are making business have enough money on them, but for us women, we are still trying”.
“Sometimes you may arrive at the border when you have exhausted all the money for clearance and even money to bribe your way out,” she says.
Faridah Tumusiime, a mother of six, is a Ugandan businesswoman living in Juba, who’s been working in the informal cross-border trade industry in East Africa, for six years, and is partners with four other women from Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, and Tanzania to reduce transport costs.
“We hire one lorry together, pack our goods and then go to Juba,” she said.
She exports rice, beans, Posho, onions, and eggs, from Uganda to sell in South Sudan. “I am not ashamed to work, I don’t sit at home and keep quiet. Nowadays you can achieve something if you are working” she says passionately about her work as a cross-border trader.
Recent studies show that women traders like Faridah and Aremo cross the borders more regularly because they buy smaller amounts of merchandise. Aremo says “If we were to have enough capital, it would help us to purchase in bulk and limit our movements to at least once or twice a month and not weekly.”
According to UNDP statistics, and TradeMark East Africa, an organization that promotes cross-border trade, women are estimated to account for 70 to 75 percent of informal cross-border trade in the sub-Saharan region between South Sudan and Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
With an average of 100 women, per month, entering the business, three cross-border associations have been formed to meet the need. However, decreasing profits, coupled with difficulties in obtaining loans to boost their businesses, makes it harder for women to rely on informal cross-border trading for their livelihoods.
Finella Lams, is the technical advisor for South Sudan Women Entrepreneur Association, a women’s group working to educate those involved in cross-border trade. She said most women don’t know the simplified trade regimes for doing business across borders.
“For example, any woman crossing at one of the three borders – Nimule – Nadapal or Kaya, if you’re carrying goods less than $2000 US dollars, you are not supposed to pay anything. The tax authorities are supposed to clear you and you move with your goods,” says Lams.
Yet women get manipulated even by “our own people.” She says, especially by the “uniformed forces” at the border points that the women can end up with nothing.
Empowering the economic futures of women across border trade requires access to finance, but without collateral security, banks don’t make that easy.
“We need capital,” Aremo said, “but there’s no way to get loans, you have to fight to get capital and if you don’t have capital, that’s a problem.”
Sometimes loan sharks are ready to provide money to these women but not without heavy interest charges.
Beyond the financial challenges, women cross-border traders are stereotyped and face verbal insults from men who call them names. ‘We are called sharamuta, an Arabic slang for a prostitute, Faridah says.
“If you are a woman, the police are calling you names. You’re a widow, that’s why you’re working for yourself, you’re a prostitute that’s why you’re moving long distances to do business here.”
Even the drivers they hire to carry their goods, often expect the women to provide sex. One day one of the drivers stopped the car claiming he had run out of fuel and ordered all the women to get out of the vehicle.
“He said, you give me this, you give me that, and he demanded sex by force and my friend later tested positive for AIDS. If you refuse, that man will not come back to take you,” Faridah angrily related.
Yet, despite the discrimination by banks and the “tricksters and loan sharks” waiting to cheat them at the border, these women are determined to succeed.
“Now that we are part of the East African Community, my hope is that cross-border trade for women will become easier and that women will be able to access finance, open factories, train, hire other women and travel freely and bring our products into the country without having to pay a single bribe. That would be the nicest gift any woman, participating in cross-border trading could receive.” Aremo says,
Faridah tells other women hoping to join her that cross-border trading is hard work but the money she makes goes to support her family and pay school fees for her children.
“When I came to South Sudan,” she said, “I didn’t have anything, but now my first daughter is going to attend P6 (Primary six), another two are in P4 (Primary four) and one is still a baby. We are eating, we have a good life.” I want to get a house then I go back with my kids and I sit in my village. That’s my dream.
We thank the African Union (AU) and African Women in the Media (AWiM) for their help in making this report possible.
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